


Seals and Angels

by BrownieFox



Series: If At First You Don't Succeed [6]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bobby Singer (mentioned) - Freeform, Gen, John Winchester (mentioned) - Freeform, Seth Wesson (mentioned), Time Travel AU, Time Travel Fix-It, blood mentioned barely, discussion over coffee, hey their relationship has to start somewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28907478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieFox/pseuds/BrownieFox
Summary: Dean talks with Castiel over a cup of coffee.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester
Series: If At First You Don't Succeed [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1364314
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	Seals and Angels

“Are you just going to stand there?” 

Dean started up at the Heavenly Angel of the Lord. The feather duster, in return, stared back at Dean with those inhumanly bright blue eyes. 

“You called me here.” Castiel said in a completely neutral voice. 

“Well I didn’t do that just so you could watch me bleed out.” Dean grunted. ‘Bleed out’ was probably a bit of an exaggeration. His leg was pretty messed up though. It seemed like this was going to be the end for this pair of jeans, and he was going to be spending a hell of a time healing up. That was under the assumption, of course, that Dad would give him the chance. Since getting on the road, things had been pretty nonstop. 

In the distance, there was the sound of a gun firing. John was still fighting the werewolf, it’d seem. 

“What would you have me do?” The angel asked, head tilting to the side as he regarded Dean. Dean tried to climb to his feet and hissed through his teeth in pain.

“Give me a hand.” Dean held a hand out, making a clear gesture for Castiel to grab a hold of it. The angel walked over, dress shoes shuffling through the foliage of the forest and looking absolutely out of place. Instead of grabbing Dean’s hand, however, the angel extended two fingers and tapped Dean’s head.

Dean would admit to having flinched very badly at that. It was partially because he remembered the angel doing something similar to his dad and Bobby back in the barn and knocking them out, and also because of the extremely unsettling feeling of the flesh of his leg knitting back together. Castiel drew his hand away, head still tilted, and looked down at his leg.

“You are… whole?” Maybe it was supposed to be a statement, but it came out as a question. Dean blinked, a hand going and feeling his leg. His jeans were still ruined, both shredded and still soaked with blood, and the blood was still on his leg as well, but the wounds themselves might as well have never existed in the first place, the skin there smooth and unblemished. 

“Y-yeah,” Dean said, his voice cracking so he cleared his throat, “Yeah.” Now that his leg wasn’t so ripped up, he was able to pull himself to his feet by himself. 

There was another gunshot in the distance, followed by a scream that Dean was all-too familiar with. The scream of something dying, a final exhale before death claimed the beast. He turned his head in the sound’s direction. From where Castiel stood there was a sound like fluttering wings or a sheet being shook out. When he looked back, the angel was gone again.

“Dean!”

John came barreling out of the brush, gun pointed forward. Dean held his hands up.

“I’m fine dad.” 

“Your leg-”

“I’m fine.” 

His dad didn’t ask about his leg. Dean didn’t offer the knowledge up.

oOo

Dean sat in the coffee shop, looking over the books in front of him. The sun was getting low in the sky. He was still mourning the pair of jeans. He was down to two pairs now, and he honestly hated shopping for clothes. He took another sip of his coffee, eyes staring at the words of the book uncomprehendingly as he tried to think about what their budget currently was and how much a good pair of jeans would cost and how his shoes were also starting to get worn out, but they could probably last a little longer, and-

Dean didn’t spit his coffee out when he looked up, but it was a close thing. He did reach into his jacket and grab a knife, barely restraining himself from drawing it out. 

Castiel sat in front of him, blue eyed and blonde haired, unblinking. 

“Jesus christ!” Dean grumbled once he’d swallowed his coffee.

“No, I’m Castiel.” The angel corrected. 

“Want to give a guy some warning next time you decide to show up?” Dean slammed the text book shut and crossed his arms. 

“I’m an Angel of the Lord, ‘wanting’ is not a part of my duty.” Castiel explained in that infuriatingly calm and monotone voice.

“Alright, then why are you here?” Dean demanded. 

“There is a seal that we believe you will be able to help us prevent.” 

“Finally! Here I was starting to think it was all a ruse to get me out of Sioux Falls.” Dean threw his hands up in the air. 

“This is no ruse, Dean Winchester, this is the world at stake.” Here, Castiel came close to almost snapping, which admittedly impressed Dean. That sounded like emotions. 

“Yeah, well, for ‘the world at stake’ you’ve sure kept your mouths shut.” Dean gave a disgruntled huff of air. 

“There is a demon loose in New York. You and your father will go there and stop it.” Castiel said instead of addressing Dean’s words. 

“Stop it from what, exactly? In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of demons a lot of places these days.” Dean leveled Castiel with his least-amused look.

“This demon will orchestrate the death of school children. Is that not a worthy enough cause for you?” Damn, was that sarcasm? Dean raised his eyebrows in surprise. 

“Alright, I get it, we’ll go, don’t get your halo in a twist.” Dean waved his hand dismissively. He flipped his text book open again. “I’ll tell him when I get back.”

The angel didn’t seem to catch on to the dismissal. Or at least if he did, he didn’t acknowledge it, instead sitting forward a bit more to look at the book. 

“Are you researching a case? You’ll have to drop it to get to New York in time.” Castiel said. 

“It’s not a case, it’s homework. You know, some of us aren’t just created with infinite knowledge or whatever.” Dean snorted. Castiel blinked and head tilted again, that bird-like gesture just barely uncanny, inhuman in a way Dean couldn’t put his finger on but made his Hunter instincts scream of ‘danger’. 

“You… are young?” Again, it sounded like Castiel had meant to state a fact and instead had found a question along the way.

“I’m almost eighteen.” Dean pointed out. Castiel seemed to consider this.

“Luke has a son. He is twenty-four, but Luke still considers this to be young. You are young for a human, younger than I believe my brethren expected.” 

Dean wasn’t sure who ‘Luke’ was, but his attention caught on that last part. 

“Your brothers thought I’d be older?” He repeated in his own words. “How long have you all been keeping an eye on me, huh?” 

“You are the Righteous Man. Your destiny had been told amongst us for generations before you were born.” Castiel stated as if it was an obvious fact.

“Guess there were angels watching over us after all.” Dean spat bitterly.

“Yes, there were.” 

“Glad to know you just never bothered to do anything.” 

“It is not our duty to interfere with humans.” That sounded like a line Dean was going to be hearing a lot of in the future.

“So patching up my leg didn’t count as interference?” Dean asked. This made Castiel pause. 

“We’ve already made contact with you.” Castiel said, but it sounded evasive. “And it would not do for the Righteous Man to die. And you prayed to me.” 

“That’s a lot of reasons.” Dean observed a bit smugly. “You showed up pretty quickly. Keeping a close eye on us, huh?”

“I’ve been assigned to watch the Righteous Man.” Castiel said and it sounded like another prepared response.

“You know my name is Dean, right? That I have a shit-ton of sex, I’ve been drinking alcohol since I had ten, that I hustle pool from idiots at bars and jump from one credit card scam to the next? Probably have more blood on my hands than some soldiers? So maybe you should be rethinking your definition of myself as the ‘Righteous Man’.” Dean glared at Castiel. He was really starting to get sick of that title.

“Yes, we are all aware of that. But a Righteous Man is defined by many things, and while these are, perhaps, unsightly aspects of your life, they are not all you are... Dean.”

“You don’t know me.” Dean huffed.

They sat in silence for a bit as Dean tried again, and failed again, to make the words of the textbook into something understandable. Dammit, he had been starting to really get the hang of this back at Bobby’s. Bobby always seemed to know how to reword things so they made sense, or give examples that were useful. Maybe it came with all of the translating he did? Would Seth be able to help explain this to Dean?

“Hey, why did you say something about Seth when we met?” Dean looked up from his book, a bit disappointed to find that the angel hadn’t disappeared yet. The angel looked surprised at the question and then proceeded to look everywhere around the coffee shop that wasn’t Dean. 

“I was trying to give you the information necessary to help you in the trials to come.” 

“Really? And the guy you warned us about just happens to be one of the best wells of Hunting lore in the country? You sure you aren’t just trying to keep us from finding out some dirty secret about you and your flock of douches?” Sure, Dean had only met the one angel, but he still felt like it was enough to label the entire lot as douches. After all, there were disasters all the time, and Dean hadn’t seen hide nor hair of angels until now. 

In truth, Dean had already been told by Sammy that Bobby had immediately called Seth in to help out as soon as John had been out the door. Dean had been on team ‘let’s keep the fact that John is alive under wraps for now and also that angels are a thing’ but Seth had already known John was alive, and apparently he was the leading expert on angels as well. However, Castiel didn’t need to know that Dean knew that. 

“Seth is… an unexpected variable.” Castiel said carefully.

“Oh, so the possibly of the apocalypse was expected then.”

“To a degree, yes. With your birth, it was well-known in Heaven that one day, Hell would make an attempt at ending the world. Their time table, however, seems to have moved up a bit. Heaven was almost taken unprepared. But, of course, we were well able to rally to defend.” The angel sat up proudly at the end and Dean rolled his eyes again. 

“Alright, and that makes Seth…?”

“Seth Wesson is… unknown, and untrackable. There has been something done to the man that hides him from our searching. If this is something he managed to do to himself, on purpose, it could point towards affiliation with Hell. And if that is so, then the knowledge that Hell holds may be greater than we’ve originally expected.”

“Wow, you sound sure about that.” Dean said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. 

“My superiors were not pleased with my informing you of our theories.” Castiel finished, once again ignoring Dean’s comment. “But as the damage is done, it seems only right to help you make an informed decision on the man.”

“Mm, yes, such an informed decision.” 

“You’re mocking me.” This time, it was a question that was posed as a fact. Castiel frowned. 

“Yeah I’m mocking you. Listen, I’ve known Seth longer than I’ve known you. Take a guess which of the two I’m going to trust more.” 

“Be wary, Dean Winchester, Righteous Man. There are many things in this world you still don’t know.” 

And on that ominous note, the angel vanished. 

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, and the great friendship of Cas and Dean gets off to an amazing and mindblowing start! Sorry for two not at all action-packed fics in a row, but idk that's just how they're coming out :P Anyway, I've decided that the story rn is in like autumn time of year? But I can't remember if I've established a different time in previous parts. If you find any inconsistancies, let me know so I can fix em up!
> 
> Also, just in general, let me know about any questions you have or comments! Hearing from you guys makes me what to write this all the more!
> 
> Next time: Seth, Dean, John, and an encounter with a Trickster >:)
> 
> I made a playlist for this fic if you wanted to hear some bops [Right Here :)](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4BAjHlD5f6zt9YYaBKR91S?si=HjvloA0NS1eCU7jeQ2J7Kg)


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